Can A Company Go Without Advertising and Just Use Branding?

Pictures are worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes. If a picture is enough, then why should any meaning need to be conveyed through advertising or more importantly through the exchange of words?
Let’s start with branding. Branding is a specific type of picture that leads a customer to assume that picture is always with that particular brand.

Branding is a way for a customer to remember who you are and what you stand for. To have an abstract brand, a customer will reference you and remember you. Take, for instance, an Apple product. Nothing about the electronic device gives way to a piece of fruit. You can’t really wash the thing off, and you most certainly can’t eat it. Why in the world would something such as this have an apple as their brand? To create abstract branding.

Everyone and their dog can create a brand pertaining to electronics, when it has something to do with electronics. The best thing to do is think outside the box and create something abstract—memorable.

The same goes for something generic. When a brand is considered generic (think Bandaids) it means that particular brand’s name or likeness is used everywhere. This can be both a good thing and bad. Good because your company has come so far that it no longer needs much more branding then what it has, but it’s bad because everyone assumes anything similar to it is that particular company.

So, that’s bad.

That’s actually where advertising and writing comes in. In order to prevent your brand from becoming totally obsolete, then you need to make the customer cares for your brand other than a name or picture. You need to have words celebrate what you stand for.

Not only are words the best to convey an official meaning for your company, but it helps the company show its personality, and possibly a customer’s concern or confusion.

Take for instance the commercials between a Mac and a PC. Two actors were asked to portray the “computers” and speak on what makes them work so well. In this way, the customer was able to get more of a sense of personality from the company, as well as get an understanding of what Mac or PC has to offer (the commercials slanted towards Mac).

Like many other companies, advertising is ideal. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but an advertisement is worth a thousand meanings.